


From Jared's Personal Journal - Given Guidance

by vega_voices



Category: Original Work, shadows in the spotlight
Genre: Character Study, Gen, M/M, character journal, character post, pubslush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-28
Updated: 2012-03-28
Packaged: 2017-11-02 15:13:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/370384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vega_voices/pseuds/vega_voices
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sitting here on a tour bus in 1989, I can say with confidence that there are a lot of things I regret in my life. The eternal optimists say that regret is not worth the energy we expend on it, but that’s bullshit. We do things we regret, that is part of being human. I do not regret smoking pot or dropping out of college. I do regret my first line of coke, the first time I stuck a needle in my arm, and the many, many times I had unprotected sex in dark rooms with men whose names I never knew. At the time, I knew those actions were stupid. I knew that sharing a needle with a friend was dumb. I knew that spending good money on drugs meant I wouldn’t be eating. But I never thought the sex and drugs would kill me. I never in my life dreamed that my stupid actions would lead to my death. Like the rest of my generation, I lived in a haze of invincibility. My parents both coddled me and demanded my independence. I knew full well that I could do anything and everything and get away with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From Jared's Personal Journal - Given Guidance

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the music of Queensryche, Iron Maiden, Queen, Metallica, Judas Priest, and more - Shadows in the Spotlight is the story of Marc Gadling, a young musician who is navigating the waters of the emerging metal scene in Los Angeles, the gay counter culture in the city, and the rising fears of what came to be known as HIV/AIDS. It tells the story of his family - the brother who loves him unconditionally, the lover who dies too young, the best friend who is the silent sentinel, and the young prodigy who proves that even after death, there is life. 
> 
> Here's how it works. Shadows in the Spotlight is available for pre-order on pubslush.com. Pubslush is a social publisher that allows the reader, not the editor, to chose what is read. Authors place the book on the site, and you, the reader take a gander. If you like what you read, place a pre-order as a promise, a promise that you will purchase this book once it is made available to buy. In addition, for every book that is published, pubslush donates a book to child literacy programs around the world. The thing is, this book cannot get published without your pre-order. If you're wondering what you're getting, Shadows in the Spotlight has a proven track record. An excerpt was published in the 2010 QSalt Lake Literary edition and it won the Honorable Mention in the 53rd Annual Utah Arts Council Fiction Writing Compeition (2011). 
> 
> For the past 30 days, support has been growing. But it isn't enough. 959 preorders are still needed in the next three months to secure publication. If you like your books peppered with heavy hitting doses of rock music, fairy tales of boys who make it big, and stories of how family is formed through passion and not blood, take note of what Shadows in the Spotlight has for you. 
> 
> Pre-order here: http://www.pubslush.com/book/view/198

Sitting here on a tour bus in 1989, I can say with confidence that there are a lot of things I regret in my life. The eternal optimists say that regret is not worth the energy we expend on it, but that’s bullshit. We do things we regret, that is part of being human. I do not regret smoking pot or dropping out of college. I do regret my first line of coke, the first time I stuck a needle in my arm, and the many, many times I had unprotected sex in dark rooms with men whose names I never knew. At the time, I knew those actions were stupid. I knew that sharing a needle with a friend was dumb. I knew that spending good money on drugs meant I wouldn’t be eating. But I never thought the sex and drugs would kill me. I never in my life dreamed that my stupid actions would lead to my death. Like the rest of my generation, I lived in a haze of invincibility. My parents both coddled me and demanded my independence. I knew full well that I could do anything and everything and get away with it. 

 

And in 1980, I still believed it.

Heading to the conference with Skid’s then fifteen bands under my belt, I spent three days lording our success over the record companies who were in it simply for the money. My last two nights in New York were meant for scouting only and I had meetings set with young bands in New York who had all left me the same message before I left Los Angeles, “We have studio space of our own but no backing and would I please, please, please come listen to them?” Happily, I obliged. 

Let me be honest – the business side of the music industry is mind numbingly boring. Especially to those of us who weren’t business majors in college. But even Craig gets bored at industry conferences. 

I think it’s because when you mix business and music while accountants are talking, boring is the only thing that can emerge. 

So there I was, sleeping through industry reports and trying to remember why I’d volunteered for this jaunt to New York. Oh yeah, the scouting thing. And the recording sessions I sat in on. And of course, the partying. The scene in New York was better and stranger and gayer than ever and it was a week of no sleep mixed with drinking, debauchery, and too much drug use. One night I was in a studio with our most recent signee, Rusted Oath, and the next hanging with Judas Priest while I scouted the New York scene. Nights like that and of course, the sweet smell of victory with every band that I stole away from the larger companies made it completely worth my time. But it was my only night off, a night out with two college friends, that changed my life. At the time, however, I had no clue my life was going to go in the direction it did. 

Two of my closest friends in college had migrated to Manhattan after they graduated. Greg was busy winning associate of the year awards left and right at some fancy Wall Street firm (I had fantasies of stealing him away to Skid but we could never pay him the money he was making.) His love-at-first-sight-happily-ever-after partner, Terry, was eeking out a living as a beat reporter with the Times and while I was happy to loudly tease them about their never ending love and affection for each other, I was jealous of what they shared. My world of casual one-night-stands hardly led to anything other than regret-filled mornings, hangovers, and empty beds. I blamed my job, but there was more to it than that. Whenever I did keep a guy, they got tired of my constant battles with whatever respiratory illness had infected me, they hated the world I ran in, they wanted more of my time … oh the excuses were endless on both sides. 

Anyway, Greg and Terry dragged me out on my one night off with the promise of a blind date, and that meant I played my cards right I’d at least get laid. Blind dates equaled blind sex and for all of my loneliness and fantastical dreams of finding that one perfect person, I didn’t want anything more than something casual and easily forgotten. I got stood up. The guy, I still don’t know his name, begged off at the last minute, claiming a sudden onset of the flu. Then, I didn’t believe him. Now, I do. Greg and Terry joked that he’d found someone better and my ego smarted at the callous disregard for my libido. 

We ended up at this fantastic Italian place that doubled as a really bad jazz club. Now remember, I grew up in Chicago. Jazz clubs should always be dark and smoky, but this place was paneled with light wood and you could actually see your hand in front of you. It didn’t bode well. But the food was almost as good as the company and we sat and chatted through two rather mediocre bands. 

It was during the second set that a shiver ran up my spine. I realized I’d stopped paying attention to Greg and Terry and that my only focus was the music. Specifically, the near perfection of the bass player. The rest of the band was passable, but the bass player was perfect. At the point where I realized his perfection, my distraction was finally noted by Greg and Terry and the focus shifted from them razzing me about my life to my pushing them for details they couldn’t possibly give me about the band on stage. I know Greg thought I’d lost my mind – even he in his limited scope of music taste (he thought Abba would save the world) could tell that they weren’t that great. 

But I pushed until Terry reminded me, in a smart-ass, flippant way, that I was a scout and as a scout I should have no problem talking to musicians. When the band took a break, I hunted down that bass player. 

Almost as tall as me, he shared my lanky build. His black hair was long, straight, and stringy. The outline of a tribal Celtic tattoo was visible on his upper arm. And despite being dressed unassumingly in a black t-shirt and black jeans, I knew instantly he was one of the family. 

And no, I don’t mean that my gaydar was beeping at me. I mean a member of the tight, incestuous, metal family. 

Jared West, said I.

Tony Gadling, said he. 

Much to my delight, Tony knew exactly what Skid was and my place with the company, and he admitted he was just sitting in with the band. He needed a paying gig. He and his brother (I never caught the name) had a metal band called Monster and they’d be playing at some tiny little underground club on Thursday night. His eyes begged me to come. 

I wish I’d been able to. But Thursday night I was on a plane to England to visit a couple of bands and scout the scene in London. The look in Tony’s eyes told me he’d set up an impromptu show in his apartment if I’d just given him a listen. Instead I gave him my card and told him to call when he got to Los Angeles. I knew he didn’t think I’d remember, but I knew I could never forget how perfectly he’d mastered every note up on that stage. 

But my night didn’t end with my introduction to the rhythm stylings of Tony Gadling. Something else happened, something that probably shouldn’t have. But I was young and horny and Greg and Terry knew all the best hangouts in Manhattan. I woke up in their bed, naked, hung over, and very, very sore. 

Regrets aside, I kissed the two of them goodbye and headed to England where after spending two days with Led Zeppelin sound-alikes Savior Disaster, I made the choice to sign them with the plan that we would develop their sound beyond mimicking Jimmy Page’s riffs. Savior Disaster is still cranking out Led Zepplein style metal but they’ve developed a progressive sound all their own. 

One night as I was leaving the studio and heading back to my hotel, I ran smack dab into the God himself. When I found my voice, I introduced myself. He did the same. And we got to talking. 

As a result of that conversation, I finally got to hang with Jimmy Page, the man who opened my eyes to a while new style of guitar playing. My whirlwind week became a learning session of gigantic proportions when he invited me to jam with him. He taught me riffs and style while I absorbed everything I possibly could. I learned more on those three days than I had in twenty years of my own guitar playing and what’s even better is that we formed a friendship which lasts to this day. 

Fucking amazing. By day I jammed with Page and Plant and by night I worked with Savior Disaster and when I did sleep, I dreamt of Tony Gadling.

Not in that way you perverts.

But my trip back to the States was hardly as magical as my time in England. I’d barely dropped off the Rusted Oath and Savior Disaster demos before I started coughing. When even my inhaler didn’t help, Craig drove me home. I called in sick the rest of the week but by Friday Craig had me sitting in the ER. February saw me contract the worst case of pneumonia I’d had in fifteen years. For February and March, I became intimately acquainted with the inner workings of Los Angeles Regional Medical Center’s ICU and isolation units. April was spent in step-down where I ate bad hospital food and hit on cute orderlies. May and June involved recuperating at home under the watchful eyes of my mother and younger brother, Phil who had moved in with me when he opted to attend UCLA. I tried to work at home, listening to demos, writing press releases, and dealing with contracts, but not much happened. 

Almost six months out of commission. And I wasn’t the only one. All over the place, similar cases to mine were starting to crop up. No one knew why. 

July, 1980.

Finally better –save for a strange rash on my shoulders-but that didn’t matter. I could breathe again! So I did something most true metal guys would never claim to do: I went back to church. For months, the priest at the local Newman Center Parish had been coming every Sunday to administer Communion and pray a rosary with me. Mostly though, we talked. We talked a lot. I won’t reveal his name, but he too was gay and we talked for long hours about the Church’s acceptance, or lack thereof, of our lifestyle. He’d found peace in the life of a celibate priest, but I wasn’t sure how that made me feel. To chose the priesthood not because God called you but because it saved your tainted, homosexual soul … I just wasn’t sure. Thinking about it makes my stomach turn in strange ways. But then again, I am and always have been a constant questioner of my faith, despite my devout beliefs in it. I think that questioning but believing is one of the most important aspects of faith. Even Christ questioned God. I think that gets forgotten about in all of the hype. And now, a lot of those questions work their way into the music Time Machine puts together. Marc and I both have a lot of questions and very few concrete answers. Jason’s Wiccan views add an interesting dimension as well.

But to have the strength to walk back into a church and kneel at a pew and take my place in line to receive Communion, I felt like a man reborn to a purpose. I just didn’t know what that purpose was. After taking communion, I knelt and prayed and asked God for guidance. 

Much to my surprise, he actually answered my prayers. Not with something more than a feeling of peace of confidence that I was on the right path, but something concrete. Something real. Three days after that prayer, he actually placed into my hands the opportunity to truly follow my dreams by dropping a folder onto my desk.

On that fateful day, I was in my office, making notes on the latest demos for what would be the defining release of Sinful’s career. Blast Down, released in December of 1980, broke all US Metal sales records to that point and the fifteen percent cut Skid took was more than enough to finance us, and Sinful, for more than a year. But in the moment, I was lost in the music, my world only extending as far as the reach of my headphones cord. At the time I was questioning everything I heard.

The stripped down bass is interesting, but are you guys really this punk?

Frank, you’re in love, not starting a flower shop. Man up, would you?

If this is the direction you’re headed, I need to remind you guys that punk guys really don’t take metal all that seriously. You might encounter resistance. 

The guitar solo on track three could be stronger. 

I hated myself for every note I scribbled, but my point of every nit-picking critique was a question I kept coming back to, one I’d jotted at the top of my legal pad: Is this where you guys want to go or are you following industry trends?

Somewhere between song six and seven, my headphones snapped off my ears and back again. I jumped what had to be six feet in the air and my chair rolled away from my desk. To add to my humiliation, I slipped and landed flat on my bony ass and looked up into the hysterical laughter of my best friend.

Might I add, I had a bruise for weeks!

“What the fuck do you want?”

I was laughing. And of course, so was he. I think I made some comment about how I was going to kick his ass and start by stepping on his perpetually bare feet with my steel toed boots. His response was simple – that I was not yet one-hundred percent and he could kick my ass, which would make sex painful.

We laughed about it, but Craig’s sarcasm aside, it was easy to tell he was nervous and distracted. He avoided direct eye contact and fiddled with the green folder in his hands. So I settled my bruised ass back into my chair, lit a cigarette and tossed him my pack, all the while ignoring the admonishing look he threw at me. When he didn’t lecture me about my health and my smoking, I knew something was really bothering him. So, I waited. Craig can work slowly at times and the methodical processes of his brain can really be something to watch if you pay attention. 

Usually I can predict what he’s about to say. It’s what has made us such great business partners over the years. That being said, I never expected the words that came out of his mouth. 

“Jared, are you happy scouting?”

Well, that was an easy answer. As much as I love performing, I also love finding and recruiting new talent. When the musicians and the fans come together in perfect harmony, it’s magic to watch. “Yes.”

“Really happy? Are you really happy doing this.” He wasn’t looking at me when he asked this question but instead at the dusty guitar case in the corner of my office. How long had it been since I had the strength to finger the strings? My hesitation answered his question.

Yet, Skid was as much my baby as his and I needed to let him know that. Dreams or not, I had a professional and personal stake in this company. “I do like what I’m doing. I love scouting and I love this company and we’re finally making real money that can be invested back into the business plan. As a result, Mom only has to send one care package a month now and Phil usually eats that.” Again, his response floored me.

“What if I offered to buy your half?”

It was then that the terror set in. Traci, our poor, overworked, underpaid secretary/receptionist/administrative assistant/savior-of-our-world fielded daily phone calls from record companies that wanted to buy us out. She stopped most offers (per our orders) at the door but some still slipped through the cracks. Had Craig finally been won over by promises of early retirement, a boat, and a cushy lifestyle? Had my six month leave of absence pushed him over the edge? Was his practical, business minded self choosing profit over friendship and had my constant illnesses taken a toll on his patience?

Defensive, scared, angry, and downright upset, I challenged him. “Are you firing me, Craig?”

To this day, I still feel guilty for the look that crossed his face. 

“God! Jared! No!”

Okay, I felt slightly better. Just slightly. What the hell was he getting at? And then in that moment, he laid out a plan that proved himself to be the best friend a guy could ever have and that I was a class A jerk for not trusting him. It was a plan that gave me everything I could ever dream of and I think has also been incredibly beneficial to the company. 

It was a simple enough deal. When I had a viable, signable band in place, I would sell and could use part of those profits to finance whatever investment I wanted to put back into the band. In turn, Craig would remain the chief manager of band operations and Skid would sign the band to a fifteen perfect contract. All I had to do was get the band together. Craig was willing to take a risk on whatever I put together and invest.

Hell, no pressure.

Seriously. I mean that. No pressure. 

In the time it took for me to get a band going, he never once put pressure on me. Craig let me do my thing but the offer was always there. In case. 

Even though I was still shaking from the conversation, I still had work to do. We finished our cigarettes and he left the green folder on my desk and I headed down to the studio where Sinful was recording what would become their landmark, breakthrough album. 

There is a sense of irreverence at Skid, borne of a lot of drinking and smoking pot and natural understanding of this strange and beautiful world we metal freaks live in. Especially in an office building with polished floors and oak doors, we aren’t afraid to insult people. The studios are all named. Studio A is The Sinner’s Den. Studio B is Boy and Babe Alley. That day, Sinful was in Studio C – the fancy, new expansion we’d acquired when we moved into the new building. Studios A and B were full of the old equipment from the West Hollywood office but Studio C was a haven of new technologies and brand new, orgasmic equipment. Yet, we couldn’t just let it be classy. We had to do something to it. So it has a red throw rug and a red couch and we even installed red lights in place of the usual light bulbs. It’s straight out of every bad seventies porno you’ve ever seen. The first time he’d stepped into it, Frank exclaimed “It’s like the inside of a perfect cunt.” Well, I’d never seen the inside of a cunt and Craig was too busy laughing to object, so The Perfect Cunt it became. 

Taped to the door of The Perfect Cunt was a note: If any of you mutha-fuckers knock when the red light is on, we’ll break off your dicks. Jared, this means you.

Well, my secret was out. Everyone knew I was back. Phil was working with Sinful as an engineer and must have let them know. Welcome home, I thought. The red light was on and so I waited. After all, I am a fan of my dick. Five minutes later the light clicked off and I barged in. 

Sinful’s entire crew was there, lounging around and listening to the playback of Frank’s vocals. Remmy Lawson, one of the greatest producers in the business was working the boards. We’d stolen him from a very sweet studio gig with Capitol and he worked for pennies compared to what he could have been making, but he took that hit to work with us. He’s still back there, hiding in our sound rooms, working his ass off. Next to him was my brother. And sprawled on the couch, absorbing everything with his freakish, osmosis-like tendencies was one of my closest friends. Jason Matthews looked up, grunted a hello, and looked back at the boards. I spent a few minutes staring at Jason, searching for new tattoos I might have missed. I lost track at six. And it was then that I realized something.

I kept staring at Jason until he started squirming. Jason’s freestyle drumming was such a fresh and different feel from the technical precision we heard every day. With his ability to switch back and forth between ethnic hand drums of all styles to the drum kits he was so comfortable behind, I was constantly in awe of his talent. His nose for business made him a perfect fit with the talent we tried to recruit to Skid. We paid him as a session musician but he was meant to be pounding the boards in a band of his own. My skin tingled in anticipation. But before I could grab Jason, Remmy grabbed my attention. 

“Hey, Jare, listen to this.”

What they played had nothing on the demos I’d been head banging to in my office. Sharp-edged vocals pierced through my leather jacket, striking right at my heart. The guitar riffs Sinful was known for were perfect – instead of soaring masterpieces that competed with Frank’s guttural style the entire package was clean and precise. They’d stripped down their signature, almost reckless bass, and what I heard instead was raw, gripping, but no less powerful. This was metal. This was where the genre was going. They’d trusted their instincts, like we always encouraged our musicians to do, like Craig was encouraging me to do, and turned out something truly perfect. 

“What do you think?” Frank asked.

I just smiled.


End file.
